


Better Off (Un) Dead

by suburbanmotel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blow Jobs, Candy Overdose, Friends to Lovers, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Sharing a Bed, SterekHalloween5, Temporary Character Death, Undead idiots in love, Vampires and Werewolves and Zombies oh my
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: The night before the day before Halloween, Stiles loses a fight with a vampire, eats an unfortunate amount of candy, and falls in love with a newly turned zombie werewolf. Surprisingly, the candy thing is the worst part of the deal.





	Better Off (Un) Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SterekWeek2019. Happy Haunting!

//

_You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around._

//

The night before the day before Halloween is not a stellar one for Stiles. Memorable in many ways for sure, but not _great_. Scary and painful and life-altering — so nothing new, really — but not something he’d consider jotting down in his journal. If he kept a journal. He’s thinking of starting a journal.

At 4:33 p.m., following a sweaty, punishing lacrosse practice — there’s a bruise shaped like a pear etched into his ribs, right side, up high — he staggers into the house, ferrets out the box of mini chocolate bars and the bag of Tootsie Rolls the Sheriff had “hidden” on the top shelf in the kitchen for Halloween in under 37 seconds — really dad? — and proceeds to demolish half of both. By 5:03 p.m. he’s sprawled on the living room couch, quietly groaning and rubbing his stomach absently while flipping through the tv channels in hopes of finding something, anything to take his mind off the fact that he just ingested 214 pounds of corn syrup and soy lecithin.

At 6:40 p.m. he’s roused from a fitful, uneasy stomach distended nap by his phone’s incessant buzzing under his left ear. Scott. Urgent. Help.

_How kll vmpiresss in wodss do NOTKK COMK_

Do not come. Well ok.

By 7 p.m. he’s staggering through said woods, swollen moon yellow behind black-laced arms of the trees, and it’s cold and his breath is billowing white in front of his face and he’s shivering because he forgot his coat and he’s holding his stomach with one hand because it still hurts and a wooden spike with the other because vampires. Scott is there, somewhere, howling, and Erica and Boyd, he thinks. Isaac and Allison. Derek. Vampires are now a thing in Beacon Hills apparently and no one seems to have come up with a better way to kill them than with fucking wooden stakes, so a wooden stake he has. The others have fangs and claws. Allison has arrows, and killer aim.

At 7:17 p.m., heart pounding, wondering idly if these “vampires” are actually kids masquerading early for Halloween, Stiles comes face to face with one and realizes immediately that oh yeah. Oh no. This is no kid and that’s no costume and his little piece of pine is going to do fuck all haha.

By 7:30 p.m. he’s dead.

//

Before he dies, his body hits the ground hard, limbs sprawled akimbo across dry, dead leaves and dirt. There’s rot here, beneath him, leaves returning to the earth, worms and bugs doing their jobs, working hard. His sense of sound is in overdrive: he can hear things, weird things, little mouths munching, leaves crinkling every time he breathes. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more aware of his _body_, skin and sinew and muscles stretched over bones, stomach and head aching for completely different reasons, the stench of something dead or soon to be dead filling his nose. He is very aware of his heart and its beat, slow and thready and jumping erratically, and of teeth, very very sharp teeth, imbedded deep in the skin of his throat, right side, middle of his neck, hands on each shoulder, cold like ice, nails digging in. It’s his _body_ still, but as time passes, slow and liquid, his _body_ is still there, but it’s empty, it’s a sack of meat. He is drifting away, and the very essence of him, of Stiles, is leaking, air from a balloon. He focuses on the moon for a bit, until that fades, too. Eventually he realizes the rot isn’t just beneath him, it’s all around him.

It turns out vampires smell really bad. He must remember to tell everyone that, after.

He blacks out for a bit, lets the vampire do its thing because he’s frankly too tired to fight anymore — massive blood loss will do that — until the teeth are suddenly wrenched out and away and the weight is gone from his chest and there’s a lot of high-pitched screeching followed by low loud furious growling that he’s quite familiar with.

“Stiles.” Yes, it’s Derek, who has perhaps whipped the vampire against the nearest tree or twisted its head right around or ripped it clean off maybe. Stiles isn’t quite sure. It’s dark and he’s dying.

“This is so not cool,” he says as the blood seeping from his neck wounds pools under his head. Derek looks deranged in the half-light, fully wolfed out, clawed hands hovering, eyes wide and scared.

_Scared._

“You weren’t supposed to come out here,” Derek says. “You were just supposed to—”

“Research,” Stiles manages. Things are going light and dark at the same time. It’s confusing.

“You were supposed to stay _safe_,” Derek says and now he sounds like he might be crying, which is so absurd and unreal that Stiles laughs. It sounds wet.

“Oh, Derek,” he gurgles. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Stiles,” Derek says. His hands, claws now just barely retracted, are wrapped around Stiles’ slick neck, almost like he wants to strangle him instead of somehow keep him from slipping away. Ah, the good old days.

In the distance, clear and high pitched and frantic, floating over the trees, Erica screams one word, one nonsensical word that would make Stiles laugh more if he had some breath left.

“Zombieswhatthefuck!”

And that’s when all hell breaks loose. Literally.

//

_You will learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid._

//

Stiles wakes up.

Stiles wakes up and for a moment thinks he didn’t actually die. But it’s cold, icy, and when he breathes — he thinks he’s breathing, at least, his chest is moving up and down — there’s no mist of breath in front of his mouth. He breathes a few more times, just to check. Nothing. His stomach doesn’t hurt, though, which is nice. Nothing hurts, actually. He presses on his pear bruise. Nothing. He presses one hand to his chest, waits for the comforting familiar thump of his heart. Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Everything inside and everything around him is still and quiet and cold. He thinks it’s cold at least, but he’s not sure. He can’t feel anything at all.

Meat sack. Ha.

He wonders where everyone is. He wonders where Derek is when he sees him, emerging from the stand of trees, moving slowly, unsteady and unsure, like he’s been injured badly.

“Derek?” Stiles says. He manages to stand on legs that feel like tubes filled with water. He feels so _weird_. This whole night has been so fucking _weird_.

Derek is lurching a bit, listing to the side like his legs have fallen asleep and are now all pins and needles. Except, Stiles realizes, it’s his entire body. Arms, head, torso. Everything twitching and robotic, like it’s all new to him, his body. Unfamiliar and foreign.

“Stiles,” he says in a voice that’s both Derek’s and not at the same time. Rusty and dry. Unused.

Stiles moves to him, takes in his ripped clothes, dirt smeared, caked with something dark and solid. Stiles’ blood maybe. Derek’s blood maybe. Some other kind of blood maybe. Stiles moves closer, hands hovering.

There’s huge bite mark on Derek’s shoulder, wide and toothy and bloody beneath the fabric that’s been ripped away.

“Those are uh.” Stiles peers at the wound, which, he sees upon closer inspection, is not actually bleeding. The blood is dry, the muscle exposed.

“Human teeth. I know.” Derek says this with great effort, like his mouth isn’t working properly either.

“A _human_ bit you.”

“Well,” Derek says. “A non-human, I guess.”

Stiles considers. “A zombie bit you.”

“Yes.” Derek shrugs and does that twitchy head shake again. “A lot of weird shit happened when you were uh.”

“Dying,” Stiles says. “Dead.”

“I was going to say unconscious.”

“I think it was a bit more serious than that honestly.”

They stand there looking at each other, pale and cold and twitchy. Derek blinks, very very slowly.

“Are we both…” Stiles doesn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“Dead?”

“Undead,” Stiles says, waving his arms around.

“Maybe?” Derek lurches again and Stiles reaches to steady him.

“Vampires and zombies and werewolves.”

“Oh my.”

“Good one,” Stiles says, wrapping his arms around Derek’s swaying torso, pulling him close. “Come on.”

“Where?”

“Oz.”

//

_There are no mistakes, only lessons._

//

Turns out there are some truisms to both vampirism and zombieism after all.

In the too bright incandescent light of Stiles’ bathroom, Derek looks grey and battered and slightly saggy. And definitely not alive. Stiles is so pale he’s almost translucent. Or at least, that’s what Derek tells him. They stand side by side in front of the mirror. One image looks back.

“Look ma,” Stiles says, jumping up and down and flinging his limbs around. “No reflection.”

Derek is peering at himself, at his greyish skin and dry lips. Even undead, even with one side of his face slightly saggy and a crack in his cheek and mud in his hair he’s unfairly fucking attractive of course. Stiles could kill him. Ha ha.

“Well.” Derek blinks and heaves a sigh. “I guess this is it then.” He sounds both resigned and like he’s swallowed dirt, which is probably likely.

Stiles runs the shower and peels off his sticky, disgusting clothes, then helps Derek do the same because Derek seems incapable of such complicated movement right now. Naked zombie Derek is as fucking attractive as Stiles imagined not zombie Derek would look, long and lean and perfectly formed. Stiles’ hands skim Derek’s hips and ribs and chest and he starts getting hard.

“Wow,” he says, looking down. Derek looks too. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

“Oh,” Stiles says. Derek’s getting hard now, too, and Stiles isn’t quite sure what to do with this information. “Well. It’s good to know that everything is still working.”

“Yes,” Derek grates, not looking at Stiles.

They stand close together in the tub and Derek does his lurching thing, stumbling into Stiles and Stiles stumbles back, slamming an elbow into the tile with a reverberating thwack and Derek winces in sympathy.

“Huh,” Stiles says, examining his smooth, white unblemished elbow. He feels nothing. No pain. “Pinch me,” he says. Derek frowns, and then does, squeezing the skin of Stiles’ wrist in his fingers. Nothing. Stiles does the same to Derek, waits for a response. Derek shrugs.

“Try punching me,” Stiles says. “I know you want to.”

“Maybe later,” Derek sighs. “When you make me mad. Which I’m sure you will.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, because he agrees. He pours soap into his palm and moves to Derek.

“Is the water hot enough?” he says, lathering his hands.

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “I can’t feel anything.”

“Me either,” Stiles sighs. He touches Derek all over with slightly trembling hands, washing away dirt and blood and dead leaves and a dead beetle stuck in Derek’s hair. He lets his fingers press against Derek’s scalp as he washes and Derek makes a pleased sound and closes his eyes.

“Wait,” Stiles says. “You can feel me touching you, right?”

“Yes.”

“And it feels…good?”

Derek nods.

Interesting.

“We can’t feel pain, but we can feel…” He stops, decides it’s best not to continue. “So,” he barrels on as Derek rinses, grit swirling down the drain under their feet. “What the fuck happened out there?”

It was a portal, Derek tells Stiles as they finish and start drying off, big blue towels that smell slightly sour because Stiles left them on the floor yesterday when he was still an alive human. Something unleashed in the woods. Something about the almost full moon and almost Halloween and Scott was not supposed to involve Stiles in any way shape or form and when Derek sees him he might actually kill him. This is something they all say regularly, and it’s usually funny. Stiles starts laughing. Then he starts crying.

“I don’t want to be dead,” Stiles whispers, throat working, towel damp between trembling fingers.

“Undead,” Derek says.”

“That too.”

“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Derek says and he sounds mad and sad.

“Guess I finally learned my lesson,” Stiles says and he cries even harder.

“Oh Stiles,” Derek says in his new raspy gravelly voice. He wraps his arms around stiles and hugs him, cold skin damp against cold skin, and Stiles rests his head against Derek’s shoulder and hugs him back. “It’s going to be ok.”

Stiles sniffles and realizes there are no tears and there’s no snot, which makes him cry even harder. Derek pats his hair and his shaking shoulders with clumsy, cold hands, smelling of old blood and rot and dirt, standing in the bare bright light of Stiles’ bathroom, broken and unbloody and undead, and oh what a pair they make.

//

_A lesson is repeated until learned. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson._

//

They retreat to Stiles’ bedroom and Stiles locks the door. Then he wedges a chair under the handle and is about to pull a bookcase in front for good measure when Derek stops him.

“I can’t have my dad find me like this, he’ll kill me!” Stiles says, and he really needs to stop saying that because it’s not funny anymore, not in the least, but before he can start crying again, Derek shoves his laptop at him and orders him to do the research he was supposed to do in the first place.

“Stay busy. Find out everything you can about our…conditions.”

Stiles nods and takes a deep breath and sits at his desk and starts typing.

His phone starts ringing and when he sees it’s Scott he looks at Derek.

“Do I answer it?”

Derek shrugs jerkily.

“Do I sound ok? Do I sound like _me_?”

Derek cocks his head. “You sound a bit…faint. But otherwise yeah.”

Stiles takes a breath and answers.

“Holy shit, Stiles!” is what Scott yells, semi-frantically, voice high and fast. He might be laughing. “You should have seen it! We thought it was just vampires, but there were zombies and mummies and something that looked like freaking creature from the black lagoon. It was crazy!”

“Wow,” says Stiles. “That’s nuts.”

“They just like appeared out of nowhere and we fought them all off and now they’re gone again!”

“Crazy,” says Stiles.”

“We can’t find Derek,” Scott says, but he doesn’t really sound too overly concerned.

“Huh,” says Stiles. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Probably,” says Scott. He sounds a bit out of breath. He’s loud and excited and hyped up on near death experiences that didn’t actually kill him. “Are _you_ ok? You sound kind of sick or something.”

“Still recovering from practice,” says Stiles. “Human being here, haha. Totally human. Tired and worn out. Should be sleeping.”

“Oh right. Sorry. Ok. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, ok?”

“You bet,” says Stiles. He looks at Derek who is spread out on Stiles’ bed, grey and cracked and sad, gorgeous and broody, contemplating the ceiling and life, probably. Or, death. “He says I sound sick.”

“You do look kind ofd pale.”

“Ha ha,” says Stiles. “Well _you_ look.” He stops. Derek cocks his head with a jerk.

“What?”

“Forget it,” Stiles mutters, then turns back to his laptop.

//

“The only way to kill a zombie is to damage its brain or cut off its head,” Stiles reads out loud half an hour later.

“Good to know,” Derek says. He’s curled up on his side on Stiles’ bed looking grey and sad and twitchy.

And 10 minutes later:

“Besides being able to move after they’re dead, zombies do not have superpowers. In fact, zombies actually have fewer abilities than they did when they were living human beings,” Stiles says.

“Hmm,” Derek says. “Good thing I’m also a werewolf then.”

“Yeah. How does that work, do you think? The whole zombie werewolf morphing thing. Which part is more dominant? The werewolf or the zombie? Or do they work in tandem?”

“Well, since this is the first time I’ve experience it, I’m not quite sure yet.” Derek says, voice dry and cracked. “I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop, though.”

Fifteen minutes later Stiles starts laughing rather hysterically.

“While vampires are fast, strong, difficult to kill, relatively intelligent, and able to regenerate, zombies are slow, rather weak, easy to kill, and dumb. Any wound or damage they receive is permanent. So, in a fight between a zombie and vampire, the vampire would most likely win.”

He can hear Derek rolling his eyes from where he lays. “Do you want to test that theory or?”

“I think I might actually like this new phase of my life,” Stiles says, grinning at Derek. Derek stares and blinks, slow.

“I’m tired,” Derek says. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“Sleep like the—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Undead,” Stiles cackles. Derek just closes his eyes and sighs, twitchily.

//

Sunshine burns like a sonofabitch Stiles finds out in the morning. He steps onto the porch and is both immediately blinded and doubled over, not in pain exactly, but in some sort of automatic bodily response to imminent destruction. He smells sizzling flesh and beats a hasty retreat back inside.

“Whoa,” he says to Derek, who is sprawled on the couch, grey and sad. “Sunshine sucks.”

“Really?”

Stiles opens the door and tries again, sticks one arm out, watches it blister and pop, yanks it back in. “Ok then.” He locks the door and closes all the blinds. His stomach rumbles and he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything since his unfortunate candy binge yesterday.

“I think I’m hungry,” he says. He marches to the kitchen and pours a bowl of cereal with milk, takes a bite and promptly throws up. He tries again. And again, just for good, disgusting measure. “Nope,” he announces. Derek lurches into the room, surveys the sprays of vomited Cheerios and sighs.

“I think you need blood.”

“Ah.” Stiles snaps his fingers and looks at Derek appraisingly.

“I don’t have any. Anymore,” Derek says like _duh_.

Stiles sighs. “Go kill me something? Please?” he says. “And keep the carcass for yourself. I think you’re going to need it.”

Derek sighs the sigh of the long suffering, but stumbles to the back door, resolute.

“And keep a low profile,” Stiles says. “You look. Uh.”

“Yes.” Derek nods. “I know.” And he’s gone.

//

_Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned._

//

“My dad will be back tonight,” Stiles says. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, a plate of rabbit bones in front of Derek and an empty glass of blood in front of Stiles. “So we have a bit of time to plan.”

Stiles has texted Scott to tell him it turns out he is actually sick with some bug thing, the gross, puking kind, and Scott sends back a string of emojis that indicates he won’t be coming near him anytime soon.

_Heard from Derek?_ Scott adds.

_Nope_ Stiles replies. _But knowing him he’s out murdering small woodland animals in honour of Halloween_

Scott sends a laughing emoji, followed by a thumbs up. Stiles smirks. Derek glowers.

“So,” Stiles says, hands pressed flat on the table. “What’s the protocol here? Does one just announce that one is dead? Undead? A party? Engraved announcements?” Stiles says. “We’re going to need to tell the pack soon. They’re wondering where you are.”

“I have no idea, Stiles. Again, this is all new to me as well. I can’t see the pack taking too kindly to the whole thing. I’m not exactly Alpha material anymore.” He gazes sadly at his plate of bones. “I’m still hungry.”

“Well,” Stiles says, considering. “We do have a mouse problem in the garage.”

He grins. Derek glowers, but follows him anyway.

//

“Do I smell bad?”

They’re lying on the couch watching a rerun of America’s Next Top Model, Stiles’ head in Derek’s lap because he just doesn’t care anymore. Being undead has removed a lot of inhibitions apparently.

“What?” comes Derek’s reply, slow like syrup.

Stiles twists his head so he’s looking up. “That vampire. The one who—” he waves a hand, “—_you_ know. He smelled like shit. Not literally. But like. _Terrible_. I don’t want to. I mean. I’d feel bad if.” He trails off.

Derek leans down, takes a breath. Closer, nose nudging against Stiles’ hair, cheekbone, jawline. He sniffs again, deep. Growls, low.

“Is that a yes?” Stiles groans. “Oh god. It’s not enough that I’m dead, I stink, too.”

Derek growls again, leaning closer. He licks the side of Stiles’ neck once, his collarbone once, twice. His fingers twitch against Stiles’ shoulders, ribs, hips.

“Uh,” Stiles says as Derek noses along Stiles’ cheeks, his chin, his lips. He’s kissing Stiles then, lips brushing then pressing, and there’s tongue, and Stiles is kissing him right back, his hand sliding up the side of Derek’s neck, pulling him down, kissing him harder.

“I take it that’s a no then,” Stiles says, head thrown back and body arched. He can feel Derek beneath him, hard in a pair of Stiles’ old sweatpants and Derek growls, fingers digging into Stiles’ hip, nothing but pleasure. Then Stiles is underneath him, the long, hard line of Derek’s dead body pushing down, Derek’s pants pushed down, Stiles’ pants getting there, and it’s only cold skin on cold skin, Derek’s fingers holding Stiles’ hips and pulling him close as they rut and move and groan.

“Oh god,” Stiles breathes.

“Yeah,” Derek says, all rasp and grit, face in Stiles’ neck, right where the fucking vampire drained him less than 12 hours ago, and Stiles locks his knees around Derek’s hips, pulls him down with hands on his cold ass, presses up and comes with a shout. Derek follows him over, breathing hard, growling in little hard bursts, body trembling and shaking and twitching like the beautiful undead zombie werewolf he now is.

//

_“There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”_

//

“Do you regret it?” Stiles whispers in the dark of his room. They’re curled together, naked and cold under the blankets, Stiles’ hands on Derek’s chest, Derek’s hands on Stiles’ back.

“Which part?” Derek says. He sounds tired, but he sounds like that all the time now.

The sex. The dying. Any of it. All of it.

“No,” Derek says, before Stiles can clarify. He pulls Stiles closer, breathes into his hair. “How do you feel?”

“Right now? Or in general?”

“In general. What does it feel like? Being a vampire?”

Stiles considers. “I feel. Odd. Like me but not. Halfway me. Transparent.”

“You’re pale.”

“I’m dead.”

“Undead.”

“Not alive.”

Stiles runs his hands up and down Derek’s cracked, cold chest, through the thick black hair, down to his dick, which is starting to get hard again. The undead are horny little bastards. Derek growls and groans and breathes in Stiles hair again and pulls him even closer.

“Good,” he says, low and rasped.

“What?”

“You,” Derek says. “I never answered. You smell fucking _amazing_.”

//

_Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself._

//

An hour before his dad comes home, Stiles presses cool fingertips into Derek’s hips, mouths at his dry skin, takes his hard dick into his mouth, sucking for all he’s worth.

“Practice,” he gasps, when Derek moans. “I need practice. You know. The whole vampire thing—”

“Yeah. Got it. Fuck. Just do it.”

Two minutes after _Stiles_ comes, hard, gasping, Derek’s dark head between his thighs, the Sheriff knocks on Stiles’ door.

“I’m sick!” Stiles croaks. “Don’t come in! I’ve been hurling all day!” He coughs for good measure.

“Do you need anything?” John says. He sounds wiped out, already starting to move away. “I’m going to bed if you need me.”

“Ok! I’m good! Just need to sleep!”

“God, me too,” John says. “But seriously. Wake me up if you need anything. Love you.”

“Love you!” Stiles crows as Derek licks him clean with a tongue that feels like sandpaper.

//

“What about you?” Stiles asks after.

“What about me what?” Derek is drowsing, face slack.

“What’s it feel like to be a zombie?” Stiles wiggles his fingers.

Derek considers. “I feel. Clunky. Slow. But I can still feel the werewolf underneath, trying to get out. I think it’s mad, maybe, that it can’t.”

“Maybe it will, eventually.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe if it gets mad enough, or excited enough?” Stiles says, pressing his nose to Derek’s chest. Derek squirms.

“Maybe,” he chokes out.

“Your skin is cool,” Stiles says, licking.

“Yours too,” Derek says, arching.

Stiles pushes his nose into Derek’s neck and inhales, then he bites down, not hard enough to break skin, but hard.

It turns out undead almost werewolf sex is pretty awesome.

//

_You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you._

//

At 3 a.m. they move silently down to the kitchen — as silently as a zombie can manage — where Derek slips out the back door to return half an hour later with a freshly killed possum in his teeth. Stiles is so excited and turned on he gets hard.

They sit in companionable silence munching and slurping and swallowing until they’re sated.

“You have a little—” Stiles reaches across the table and wipes some flesh from the corner of Derek’s mouth, lets Derek lick it from his thumb, then sits back, nothing but fond.

Stiles ignores his phone and ignores his phone and ignores his phone until Scott is calling nonstop, phone vibrating to the edge of the table.

“Stiles! We can’t find Derek.”

“Oh.” Stiles swallows. “He’s here.”

“What do you mean. He’s there? With you?” Scott pauses. “But you’re still pukey sick.” He pauses again. “Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, swallowing hard. “About that.”

//

“Dude,” Scott says in the dim light of the moon in Stiles’ backyard. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Derek says. He’s leaning heavily on Stiles, who has his arms around him right.

“And…what’s this?” Scott says, gesturing vaguely at them.

“Oh, we’re also like. Together. Now.”

“Uh huh,” Scott says.

“It’s a lot to take in I know,” Stiles says.

“Yeah,” Scott says.

“I’m sure you can handle it,” Derek says, dry as dust.

“Well, I’ll try.” He considers, looking back and forth at each of them. Derek sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Try harder.”

“Ok,” Scott says, squaring his shoulders and pulling them both into a hug. “Welcome to the family.”

He leans his mouth close to Derek’s ear and whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you. Again.”

Stiles laughs until he cries, tearlessly.

//

_The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust._

//

“I guess we’re stuck like this?” Stiles says to the ceiling.

“Is that a question?”

“Did I phrase it like a question?”

“Yes?”

Stiles rolls and shuffles closer to Derek under the blankets. “You know I’ve liked you for a while right?”

“I may have noticed,” Derek says, sounding vaguely smug. “All that back talk and posturing and arguing and hormones and adjusting of the pants and—”

“Ok. Got it,” Stiles says, licking a long, wet, cold line up Derek’s neck. He has a thing for Derek’s neck, which he guesses makes sense. He licks the other side, to be even, then he bites down, gently, and Derek moans and trembles and twitches.

“If I bit you, would you be a zombie werewolf vampire?” Stiles sound gleeful. “How cool would _that_ be?” 

Derek might reply but Stiles isn't sure because goddamn fucking _neck_.

//

When John knocks at 8 a.m., Stiles opens his door a crack and peers out, bleary and confused because he is.

“Oh god,” John says. “You look awful.” He hands Stiles a glass of orange juice and two Advil, feels his forehead. “You’re freezing.”

“Just need more sleep,” Stiles rasps. The smell of orange juice is making him gag. John backs up a step.

“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”

“Pretty sure,” Stiles says, moving to close the door. “Just gonna go back to bed. Right now. I’ll be better tonight. I know it. Have a good day at work.”

“Halloween today,” John says as he walks away, still reluctant. “In case kids start showing up before I get home, I’ve put what’s left of the candy in a bowl at the front door.” He fixes Stiles with a look that Stiles ignores and he slams his door before John can hear the muffled laugh of a zombie werewolf behind him.

//

_You will forget all this._

//

When Stiles wakes up again he forgets for a moment. That he’s dead, primarily. That he bled out on the forest floor and woke up a vampire cradled in a zombie werewolf’s arms. All of that. He stretches and rolls over and looks at his phone and sees the date and sits up with a jolt.

The sun is setting. Stiles can hear the kids outside his bedroom window, up and down the street, calling and shrieking, doorbells ringing.

Halloween. His new favourite holiday.

“It’s starting,” he whispers into Derek’s neck. He presses his teeth gently, ever so gently, against the cold skin. Derek listens and nods and smiles just a bit.

“Let’s go out.”

//

“Hi dad bye dad!” Stiles yells after clattering down as fast as he can manage with one hand tight around Derek’s wrist, Derek stumbling and lurching behind him, feet clumsy and unsure. The sheriff looks up blearily from his soup and his phone.

“Feeling better then?”

“Much! Totally healed! Never better! See you later!” The door slams behind them just as he hears his dad say,

“Who the hell is that? Is that _Derek_?”

It’s dark out, and cool, no wind under a full yellow moon. Everyone is dressed in costumes. Costumes are everywhere and no one blinks at a pale boy and his greyish green, slightly rotting companion as they stroll along, side by side. Candy is being handed out. Candy will be consumed later. It’s all trick or treats, and orange and black and gold, dark sky and dark trees, It’s so beautiful Stiles could cry.

Stiles takes Derek’s hand, his large, dry, cracked hand, and holds it tight.

“Your hand is cold,” Derek says.

“So’s yours.”

They wander the streets, under the full yellow moon, among the children and onlooking parents, the flickering pumpkins and Stiles, if he had a heart, feels it lighten. He grins at Derek, full and wide and Derek smiles back, slow and tentative, lips cracking a bit and oh, Stiles’ non-beating heart just swells at that. He leans up impulsively and kisses him on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“I’m happy,” Stiles says and shrugs, then grins even wider because he means it. He really means it.

//

_You can remember it whenever you want._

//

The day after the day after Halloween Stiles comes out to his Dad. His dad, who is no idiot, takes it better than Stiles anticipated.

“I’m really sorry,” Stiles says, biting on his lower lip. “Ow,” he adds like the human he isn’t when he breaks skins and tastes blood. Teeth. His dad hands him a towel along with a huge sigh.

“We both are,” Derek says from the doorway, where he’s kind of hunched, arms tight across his chest, eyes down.

“So, you’re a vampire now,” John says, to clarify. Stiles nods. “And you,” he says to Derek. “You’re a…”

“Zombie werewolf,” Stiles says, helpful as always.

“Uh huh,” John says. “And you’re…dating?”

Stiles looks at Derek. Derek looks up and looks right at him, eyes muddy and sweet and full of something that might be hope. He swallows with difficulty and smiles a tiny bit. It looks like it hurts him to do so, but really, that’s not so different from not-zombie Derek, so Stiles takes it as a win.

“Yes,” Stiles says. “Let’s go with that.”

John sighs again and touches his forehead like it hurts. “You still have to finish school,” he says.

“Absolutely.”

“And do your chores.”

“Yep.”

“And you still have a curfew.”

“Uh.”

“And,” John points at Derek. “No sleepovers. Not until Stiles is uh.”

Stiles sighs.

“Are you actually going to get any older?”

“Probably not?” He grins hopefully. “So?”

“Oh whatever,” John says shaking his head and walking away. “Like I could stop you anyway.”

And Stiles keeps grinning at Derek because he really couldn’t.

//

Stiles doesn’t sleep in a coffin because gross. He doesn’t sleep upside down because it hurts his head. And his knees. He knows this because he tried, just once. Once was more than enough. He’s not a cliché. He’s a goddamn kickass _vampire_. He sleeps in a bed with 500 thread count sheets because they feel nice on Derek’s dead, cracked skin. He sleeps curled on his side, knees up, arms flung out over the muscled, hot even when dead chest of a sleeping werewolf zombie.

Meat sacks, he thinks, prodding at his pale, soft, spongy, cold chest. Meat sack, he thinks as he strokes Derek’s long, hard and soft grey skin. When it oozes, which it does on occasion, Stiles holds a cloth to it, wipes it clean, kisses it and hugs him hard. Derek sighs, long suffering, and hugs him back.

Meat sacks in _love_.

//

Stiles cracks the curtain, peers out, pulls back squinting.

“Sunshine?”

“Unfortunately.”

“It’s November. It’s supposed to be cloudy and dreary and miserable.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Stiles says, hope in his voice.

Derek holds out an arm, heavy, grey. “Come back,” he rasps.

Stiles does, sliding in and letting Derek pull him close, breath cool on the back of his neck, lips pressing there just below the hairline.

“Sleep,” Derek says.

“I’m going to be hungry soon,” Stiles says, but he’s pretty comfortable right now.

“I’ll make you that thing you like,” Derek says. “With the blood,” he adds.

Stiles perks up. “And the candy?”

“Yeah.”

“No Tootsie Rolls.” Stiles shudders.

“God no.”

The doze for a bit. Stiles’ stomach growls. Derek twitches and moves to get up.

“I’ll go kill something for you.”

Stiles holds Derek’s hand tight across his chest.

“Or, we can sleep for a bit,” Stiles murmurs. “The sleep of the—”

“Don’t say it.”

Stiles grins and rolls over, chest to chest, and whispers it close and soft and cold into Derek’s cold ear.

“Stiles?” Derek says then, quiet and sad. “I’m really sorry you died.”

Stiles kisses him on his cold, dry lips. “It’s ok. I’m sorry you died too.”

They look at each other. Stiles smiles and leans in because Derek’s _neck_.

“Just think,” he says around long, very sharp incisors. He nips at Derek’s skin.

“Think what,” Derek groans, long and low and gravelly. Stiles palms Derek’s dick with cold fingers. Derek shudders.

“We might never would have gotten together if we hadn’t died.”

“True,” Derek says, hips hitching with little jerks that might have nothing to do with his current state of deadness. “I guess it’s not all bad.”

“Being alive is overrated.”

Derek considers this. “Maybe,” he says. “But if I _had_ to be dead—”

“_Undead_—”

“—with anyone, I’d choose you.”

Stiles smiles and kisses him, long and slow and gentle and cold.

“You say the sweetest things.”

//

_Titles taken from Rules for Being Human_


End file.
